"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show." (Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)

2005, Nov 28; 21:58 :::
European popular cinema and European art cinema

Indeed, the tendency of recent German histories to chronicle art cinema and
not popular cinema stems from the fact that the German government, like that
of most European countries, has tended to support what Dyer and Vincendeau
call the "high white traditions" as emblems of national identity
as German export culture.(6) Only recently has there been a concerted effort
in film criticism to break down this opposition of high European and popular
American as film critics have sought a European popular cinema. This book
searches for the popular response to Fassbinder's television work, but in
West Germany the manufacture of high culture was much more self-conscious
than in other European countries and became synonymous with the Autor
(the author)-the central discourse of the German state and its cultural arm
of public television to legitimize their production of German culture and
in particular Fassbinder's work.

The Autor and Cultural Capital
A Fassbinder film can be understood without knowledge of his biography, but
such a reading is naive. Biographical reading is a result of how films of
the European art cinema were promoted in criticism and in the popular press
as the personal statements of their directors in the 1960s and 1970s. These
statements have had real and historical 'objective' status in the reception
of Fassbinder's films within his own country. Although the Fassbinder myth
involved both his filmic form and the changing history of film in West Germany
in the 1970s, this book limits itself to examining Fassbinder the historical
being in order to understand "the Fassbinder film." -- Television, Tabloids and Tears. Fassbinder and Popular Culture by Jane Shattuc, Minneapolis, 1995 via http://www.haussite.net/haus.0/SCRIPT/txt2000/01/shattuE.HTML [Nov 2005]

This leads us to the development
of a popular European cinema. One could argue that the only really European
popular cinema is the US cinema (Dyer and Vincendeau, 1992: 11, Ciment,
1997: 146), considering the market shares of US films in European countries
(Cinema Yearbook, 1998: 93). What about popular entertainment made for
Europeans by Europeans? Is it really a problem of actors, effects and budgets,
as has been claimed for decades? According to Nowell Smith (1998: 13),
‘Europe has lost the art of producing trash, for it is trashy films that
are the manure of film culture, the source of the modern mythologies through
which the cinema speaks to its remaining audience.’ And this is the area
in which Europe has most seriously lost out over the last decades: the
popular genre production. A popular domestic cinema still exists however:
popular comedies featuring television celebrities (as e.g. in Belgium the
popular comedies Oesje, the Urbanus cycle) But this phenomenon remains
very culture related: there is no circulation in Europe (Cinema Yearbook,
1998: 94). Films aiming for the culturally specific are seen as more foreign
than Hollywood to other countries, because European audiences are used
to watching great quantities of Hollywood film (Dyer and Vincendeau, 1992:
9). This again illustrates how very little is to be found of a ‘European’
identity reflected in ‘European cinema’. -- Look who’s watching! A brief reflection on European cinema audiences by Philippe Meers via http://www.mediasalles.it/crl_meers.htm [Nov 2005]

Studies of popular cinema most often concentrate on films made within the Hollywood film industry, whilst European cinema is predominantly analyzed through frameworks offered by what is most conveniently labelled art cinema. This rough opposition leaves European films that have been produced within commercial contexts and use the codes and conventions of popular genres critically marginalized. However, to simply classify such works as popular cinema, and as a general polar opposite of the art film, is unproductive and ignores the specific contexts of production and consumption that operate in relation to European popular cinema and the ambitions of those who work in those industries. Through a case study of a number of horror films produced in Spain since the late 1960s, this paper will argue that a breakdown of this simple opposition is needed in order to understand such popular films through a consideration of their textual strategies and the particular production, distribution and exhibition contexts that impact upon their construction. The specificity of the case study will demonstrate that an approach that treats the distinction between arthouse and popular more fluidly allows for a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of each film. --Andy Willis (University of Salford) via http://www.art.man.ac.uk/DRAMA/department/FSP%20Symposium%20Abstracts.pdf

2005, Nov 24; 23:29 :::
Ossessione (1943) - Luchino Visconti

Ossessione (Luchino Visconti, 1943) is generally considered to be the first Neorealist film. It is also Luchino Visconti's first feature film, and the first of several adaptations of James M. Cain's novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ossessione [Nov 2005]

2005, Nov 24; 23:29 :::
Death in Venice (1971) - Luchino Visconti

The novella Death in Venice was written in German by Thomas Mann, and was first published in 1912 as Der Tod in Venedig. It is often said to be Mann's most important short narration.

A film version directed by Luchino Visconti was made in 1971, with Dirk Bogarde as Gustav von Aschenbach and Bjorn Andresen as Tadzio. Benjamin Britten wrote an operatic version of the story on a libretto by Myfanwy Piper (premiered 1973). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_in_Venice [Nov 2005]

2005, Nov 24; 18:48 :::
Ericofon

2005, Nov 19; 23:57 :::
Amazon introduces folksonomical functions

Over the last couple of days I have played with the new Amazonfolksnomy feature, which allows visitors to tag items for later use by tagger or general audience. Much in the same style that Stumbleupon and del.ici.us did in the web realm.

The power of the Amazon tags is best illustrated with a little example. Here is a list of items I tagged Jahsonic. Very convenient. As you can see from the list, films can as of this time not be tagged. My guess they get their recently introduced film taxonomies from the IMDb databases.

www.jahsonic.com
Jahsonic, or Jan Geerinck exploring the boundaries, bridges and intersections of modern culture, is an impressive work on art, music, film, sensibilities en fiction. Jan attempts to map contemporary culture. A site like Jahsonic is hard to define. Looking for a serious survey of the history of disco, from the earliest French wartime discotheques to the DJs of today? This is the place to be. Contains copious links to other sites, books and interviews, as well as many references. The site features a fair amount of Wikipedia content, but the author makes no secret of that. Deservedly, the site was chosen Yahoo! Pick in September and the more than 6000 pages featured on Jahsonic, command ample respect. --Dirk Schoofs, Clickx magazine 106 [Nov 2005]

Early 18th century novels and romances were still not considered part the world of learning, hence, not of part of literature; they were market goods. If you opened the term catalogues it was mostly situated in the—predominantly political—field of "histories" with some romances like Cervantes Don Quixote translated into verse becoming poetical. The integration of prose fiction into the market of histories appeared under the following scheme:
--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histories_(history_of_the_novel) [Apr 2005]

2005, Nov 09; 23:09 :::
Exploitation film intro

I have been cleaning up more and the exploitation film page is beginning to look good:

They can keep their Bressons and their Cocteaus. The cinematic, modern marvelous is popular, and the best and most exciting films are, beginning with Méliès and Fantômas, the films shown in local fleapits, films which seem to have no place in the history of cinema. --Adonis Kyrou (1923 - 1985)